Dixie Diary 8: Confederate Silver

Block 8

Confederate Silver

8" Version

Confederate Silver, a basic patchwork design, recalls the deprivations that started to appear in Louisiana. After a year and a half of war even the basics were hard to come by .

In the fall of 1862 Sarah Morgan left part of her family boarding in the town of Clinton, while she accepted the hospitality of her sister-in-law's family at Linwood Plantation, near Port Hudson on the Mississippi, held by the Confederates. 

Linwood was photographed for the first edition of Sarah's diary.

Albert G. Carter finished building the house in 1848. His daughter Lydia married

Thomas Gibbes Morgan, Jr., Sarah's brother.

The young women were invited to view a dress parade, although the General extending the invitation warned them he could only send a "Confederate carriage," a wagon drawn by a mule.

A mule team and the driver

Drawing by Edwin Forbes

Library of Congress

September 24, 1862, Linwood, East Feliciana Parish

"Now, in present phraseology, 'Confederate' means anything that is rough, unfinished, unfashionable, or poor. You hear of Confederate dresses, which means last year's. Confederate bridle means a rope halter. Confederate silver, a tin cup or spoon. Confederate flour is corn meal….

"And what a sad sight the Fourth Louisiana was, that was then parading! Men that had fought at Shiloh and Baton Rouge were barefooted. Rags was their only uniform for very few possessed a complete suit, and those few wore all varieties of colors and cuts. Hats could be seen of every style and shape from the first ever invented down to the last one purchased evidently sometime since. Yet he who had no shoes looked as happy as he who had, and he who had a cap had something to toss up, that's all."

Linwood is the white square

Block 8

Confederate Silver

Snapshot of Sandi Brothers's 12" version with a 1" frame, set on point

The pieced block has a BlockBase number.

BlockBase #2301

But it is so basic that a name hasn't been published.

Cutting 12"

There is only one pattern piece.

Cut 2 squares dark and light 13-1/4"  (13 3-16" if you use the 1/16th" default)

Cut each square into 4 triangles with 2 cuts. You only need two triangles of each shading.

Cutting 8"

Cut 2 squares dark and light 9-1/4"  (9 3-16" if you use the 1/16th" default)

Cut each square into 4 triangles with 2 cuts. You only need two triangles of each shading.

To piece the block think diagonally and join 2 triangles to make a larger triangle.

Optional applique:

Applique a star or a heart after piecing.

Go back to the January 5, 2013 post to see a JPG with the heart and the star.

http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2013/01/dixie-diary-1-her-flag-flying.html

Northern cartoonists satirized the Confederate solider

in 1862. Despite deprivations they hung on for three more years. 

Finishing Up the First Block-of-the-Month

Civil War Sampler

by Lori B

35 blocks

 Here are a few recent finishes to the Civil War sampler we started in January 2011, the first month of the sesquicentennial commemorations of the Civil War.

Lori used several large-scale patriotic prints and sashed it 

with the always reliable star/cornerstone pattern.

Civil War Sampler

48 Blocks

by Anita

She's finished hand quilting it and it hangs in the living room.

Peggerly's set is similar but in the opposite contrast.

Now, I might have shown you these before but I imagine you'll enjoy looking at them again.

Here is doniene's finished top with the sashing plus cornerstone set.

16 Blocks by Imaquilter Wis

Contrary to her name Msdolittle has her top done. She used the same set

Becky Brown used for her cover quilt.

Becky sent a picture of her Liberty & Union quilt

back home on its bed.

Want to see more finished Civil War samplers? Go to our Flickr page of Finished Projects:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/55642760@N07/galleries/72157630080300288/

We're Over Half Done

Dixie Diary

TwelveOaks195

We've done Block # 7 of the Dixie Diary block-of-the-month, so we have 5 to go. People have been posting their progress. Twelve Oaks has added the one-inch frame to hers as she goes.

I found some of these in our Flickr photo album. Click on the photographer in the left hand column or here:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/civilwarquilts2011/

I did a little photoshopping to make them look their best.

Dixie Diary

Rosemary Y

Rosemary has sashing plans.

Dixie Diary

Honas52

And Honas52 has finished a top with half her blocks.

Dixie Diary

Cookie's Creek

 Cookie's Creek has posted her first six, pieced in pink and brown.

Dixie Diary

Moose Bay Muses

She's using Jo Morton's Alexandria reproduction line. 

See her tutorial on how to applique a simple star here:

http://moosebaymuses.blogspot.com/2013/03/easy-applique-stars-mini-tutorial.html

Dixie Diary

Pinkdeenster

She's been re-purposing old embroidered linens. It's turning out quite well.

The black is just the photography background. 

It will be fun to find out what she comes up with for a setting.

Post your progress. We'll look forward to seeing how it's all coming together.

Civil War Era Photo with Quilt

Several years ago I saw this stereocard photo in an online auction.

I didn't win it but I saved the picture as the women's dress indicated the 

picture was taken in the 1860s.

I found the photo the other day and enlarged the quilt to see what they are admiring.

[UPDATE: Five years later I have figured out the photo is probably a Civil War-era studio set up shot using actors by New York photographer George Stacy.]

The closest I could figure out was the standard octagon in a square

BlockBase #4141

Although the photo pixels break up at this scale and there might be a little more pattern than this basic

square with the corners cut off.

It seems to be shaded in counterchange fashion---what's light in one square is dark in the other---

and not scrappy. So I colored it in pink and brown in EQ7.

In BlockBase there is a button you can hit

that will tell you its published names

Calico Snowball  from Evelyn Brown who had a pattern magazine in the 1960s

Hour Glasses or Octagons from Lenice Bacon's 1970s book

Rob Peter to Pay Paul from Carlie Sexton about 1930

And The Marble Floor from the Kansas City Star in 1930

The "View Namelist" button looks like

an index card, the second index card in the top row of buttons in BlockBase.

In my file of patterns to make some day

I found this circa 1860 quilt done in madders and Prussian blue. 

It is the same block but not shaded in counterchange fashion---every center is dark.

And there is a pieced sashing that forms a star.

A design wall would come in handy with that sashing.

I was inspired to try to figure out the pattern by the show of quilts in photos from Janet Finley's collection that is up at the International Quilt Study Center and Museum.

Posing With Patchwork Quilts: Quilts in Photographs 1855-1955 is at the museum in Lincoln through December 1, 2013.

You can also see the exhibit online by clicking here:

http://www.quiltstudy.org/exhibitions/online_exhibitions/onlineexhibits_intro.html

You will see they have found a quilt in the pattern for each photo.

Dixie Diary 7: Living Off Cornbread

Block 7

Living Off Cornbread

8" Version

Southern shortages affected everyone, even spoiled girls like Sarah Morgan who lamented she could find no strings for her guitar or seed for the pet birds. By the end of the war these minor complaints might have embarrassed the older, wiser woman she became. Food for people was becoming scarce in Louisiana and would become scarcer.

A 12" version with a 1" frame, set on point

By Sandi Brothers.

A child and a fancy birdcage

September 4, 1862 Clinton

Ouf! what a country! Next time I go shopping, I mean to ask some clerk, out of curiosity, what they do sell in Clinton. The following is a list of a few of the articles that shopkeepers actually laugh at you if you ask for:  Glasses, flour, soap, starch, coffee, candles, matches, shoes, combs, guitar-strings, bird-seed,---in short, everything that I have heretofore considered as necessary to existence. If any one had told me I could have lived off of cornbread, a few months ago, I would have been incredulous; now I believe it, and return an inward grace for the blessing at every mouthful."

 The Morgans were probably better off at the crowded boarding house in Clinton. Photographer Andrew Lytle captured breadlines outside his studio in Baton Rouge.

The pieced block is #2039 in BlockBase,
 called King's Crown by the Kansas City Star in 1931.

Cutting 12"

A: Cut 1 square 6 1/2".

B: Cut 1 square 7 1/4". (5-3/16" if you use the 1/16th" default) Cut into 4 triangles with 2 cuts. 

C: Cut 4 squares 3 1/2".

D: Cut 4 squares 3 7/8". Cut each into 2 triangles with 1 cut. 

Cutting 8"

A: Cut 1 square 4-1/2".

B: Cut 1 square 5 1/4" (5-3/16" if you use the 1/16th" default). Cut into 4 triangles with 2 cuts. 

C: Cut 4 squares 2-1/2".

D: Cut 4 squares 2 7/8". Cut each into 2 triangles with 1 cut. 

Add smaller triangles to either side of the B triangle. Make 4 of these. 

Add the squares on either side.

Make 2 of these rectangles for top and bottom.

Add the remaining rectangles to either side of A.

Piece the 3 strips together.

Optional applique:

Applique a star or a heart after piecing.

Go back to the January 5, 2013 post to see a JPG with the heart and the star.

http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2013/01/dixie-diary-1-her-flag-flying.html